Why are railroads often claiming that they can’t handle both passenger and freight, one or the other ? It is not just in North America but in Europe too .
Greyhound busses and airlines all handle freight amoungst passengers. Why not trains.? I would think a passenger train would be at least as capable as a bus or plane to cary some cargo.
Well, Amtrak sure gave it a try.
And, at the other end of the spectrum, we have CSX and UP! They are trying to prove freights and passengers cannot and should not mix-ever![:(!]
I have a feeling that CSX might even argue that even the freight is too much trouble.[;)]
Relative speed. I think it’s been said here before that a railroad runs best when all the trains run at about the same speed. Throw something vastly different into the mix (faster or slower) and you gum up the works.
The reason that freight and passengers can coexist on the highway is because they can remain fluid. If one vehicle is running faster than another, they can simply pull out into the other lane and pass (speaking chiefly of 4 lane roads).
Trains can’t do that very well - it’s more like a windy two lane road with no passing zones. Look in the latest Trains for the article about the trucks/trains dichotomy - there’s a picture of a truck with a long line of cars behind it…
A dispatcher with a fast train to move has to find places to stow the slower trains or find/make gaps in oncoming traffic (for a two-track line) where the faster train can run around slower trains. On a busy line, that’s no fun.
It ain’t simple, but it’s doable. Read this:
http://www.nscorp.com/nscorp/index.jsp?pageid=Search&qt=passenger+rail&Go.x=13&Go.y=7
NS’s policy also includes 90 mph max for passenger on mixed territory.
A Greyhound bus has cargo and passengers traveling at the same speed. The same goes for an airplane with cargo and passengers. So what’s wrong with a baggae car and a box car in a passenger train ?
Yes, Amtrak did try it.
[(-D]
Often airlines carry cargo in passenger planes (if you remember the Valujet crash, that was caused by mislabeling “cargo aircraft only” cargo in a passenger plane). The aircraft generally contains more luggage room than the passenger baggage requires. Aircraft tend to carry light, high value items or time sensitive items, like fresh fruit on overseas flights. Most passenger planes have dedicated cargo room.
There’s no reason why a passenger train can’t carry cargo - other than the lack of demand - cargo that can be carried by train, could be carried by dedicated freight trains. The faster speed of passenger rail and regular schedule for ground transit could make it an appealing alternative to trucks - at least in theory. In practice, regular schedule by rail is difficult when they have to share tracks with slower cargo trains.
Nothing. Provided you don’t try to run a box car with a std 3 piece truck much more than 60 mph or so. For faster speeds, you need more complex trucks. Technically, there are no barriers. It’s commercially that the problem.
But, how much freight wants to go on Amtrak’s schedules and routes at a rate that pays? Not nearly enough and that’s why Amtrak is out of the frt business.
Conversely, why not passenger cars on frt trains? Slack action, for one, even if on the head end. And, ridiculously slow trip times on most routes, even for intermodal.
Most railroads in the US are predominantly Single Track line. Even where they have lines that are Double Track, if you use the highway equivalent of Double Track you have the two lane road that anyone who travels in today’s age despises. Remember, for one train to pass another train on double track, trains traveling in the opposite direction must stop and wait for the passer train.
A rail lines have a capacity…even multiple track territories have capacity. The total capacity for a track segment actually decreases as more services that have varying speeds are initiated. A 100 MPH train will travel twice as far in the same time as 50 MPH train so decisions have to be made as to where to stop the 50 MPH train so the 100 MPH train can pass without delay. Throw in more examples of differing train speeds, 70 MPH Intermodals, 60 MPH Manifests, 40 MPH Bulk Commodity trains and all of a sudden what seemed like limitless capacity becomes very narrowed and defined. The freight volumes of Class I’s today is at an all time high and most all Class I’s are having capacity issues just handling the freight, let alone handle faster passenger schedules without delay. The one truism of dispatching…a 9000 foot train occupies 9000 feet of track and cannot disappear because another train needs the 9000 feet of track.
…If enough “freight” was loaded on freight cars and tacked onto fast passenger trains…at some point, the passenger train would stop being a “fast” passenger train. Demoting it to almost freight train speed.
I know this was sort of discussed already on another post…Passenger and commuter railroads will give all reasons why they don’t want freight. We live in modern times with technology. The railroads of the past mixed both all the time! Erie Lackawanna ran thru passenger trains, commuter trains, and a full freight schedule all on the same lines around here. Yet NJTransit claims that freights screw up their trains. There are lines where the two co-exist just fine, but once a commuter or passenger agency gets control of a line its the end of freight, or they are severely limited and forced to run in the middle of the night.
1221 has made a real good point. It worked so well in the past. What happened?
I rode the Empire builder with 6 box cars 6 years ago. We zipped right along. I do not remember why Amtrak ceased. Is the overhead cost so much that the sevice could not make money?
You hit the nail right on the head. The additional revenue generated by the package and express service barely covered the additional expenses, making a negligible contribution to the bottom line. It also conflicted at times with the passenger service, such as the fact that the express boxes and Roadrailers were added to the long-distance trains after they pulled out of Chicago Union Station and had to be cut from the trains prior to arrival, since most of them backed into Union Station.
The Pennsylvania had, at times more express box cars then it did passenger cars…I have plenty of films documenting that… or for that matter the RI Rockets hauling piggyback cars! I don’t think anyone considers this a technical issue but I would not expect this to occur unless the private roads were contracted to operate passenger trains which I seem to be the only one who thinks this is a sound idea…Amtrak trains could hardly charge a premium for express priority freight as most of their runs are regularly off schedule on an already padded timing. The fact that Amtrak manged this service on a ad hoc basis with little consideration to operational feasibility is no big surprise neither is the fact they attempted it in such a half baked manner.